The Hidden

by Jo Chumas

  He looks startled for a moment. There is no time to lose, but suddenly I panic. What if I miss? What if my shaking hand is not able to pull the trigger? My body stiffens and my heart bangs wildly in my chest. I cannot believe I am doing this. The music in the palace has gotten louder and more frantic. I can hear a scuffle in the corridor outside, the sounds of moaning. I turn my head to look at the door. I know I must do this before it is too late. Whatever happens to me afterwards is of no importance. I must avenge my poor Rachid. I stiffen against the revolver and close my eyes. The door to his quarters opens, and I hear boots in the corridor. I hear a tat-tat-tat-tat-tat of bullets firing downstairs and more screaming. I hear French being spoken. I hear Alexandre’s voice, deep and loud.

  I take one last look at al-Shezira’s face, the evil mass of flesh in front of me, and I suddenly feel strong, empowered.

  “You won’t win,” he shouts. “You are a whore.”

  I am not Hezba anymore. Hezba has died. I close my eyes and shoot. Then I shoot again and once more and watch his body fall to the ground in front of me.

  I pump his body with more bullets, anxious to finish the job properly. Then I fall on my knees beside him and reach out to touch one of the gaping wounds. The warm blood on my fingers reassures me that this is real and not some dream.

  I feel as though the bullets have been pumped into my own flesh. I cannot believe what I have done. I shiver uncontrollably. Then I hear a loud noise and feel strong arms clamp down on me. I see the flash of a lantern, hear a voice, urgent and pleading, feel the heat of someone’s breath against my ear. I notice for the first time that I am covered in blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Aimee felt a sharp object being rammed hard into her hip. Mahmoud put his arm forcibly around her shoulders and whispered hotly in her ear.

  “A piece of me and you’d soon shut up.”

  She flinched and closed her eyes in horror.

  “How would you like that, little Madame? Fancy some of my rough-and-ready?”

  He laughed and spat on the ground. Nauseated with fear and disgust, Aimee quivered miserably. What a revolting man. If she’d been a man herself, she would have fought him off, but her fear had immobilised her. If she screamed out, he would use the gun poked violently in her side.

  He continued. “When I’ve finished with you, after I’ve taken you to meet my friend, I might kill you, just for the fun of it, but not before we’ve taken a little ride together, out to the desert. It gets very lonely out there at night and very, very cold.”

  He walked her outside with his arm around her and thrust her in the front seat of his car. “Remember,” Mahmoud said, “not a word. I don’t want to hear a single sound come out of that pretty mouth of yours.”

  They drove through dirty streets, on their way, Aimee realised, to Gezira. Mahmoud kept looking over at her. She could feel the hard edge of his gun next to her on the leather seat. Her hands were tied in front of her and a blanket was draped over her, so no one could see. She could feel his watery eyes running over her breasts and her legs. Every time he looked at her, her stomach sank and she could not breathe.

  At last the glittering expanse of the Nile appeared, and they crossed the bridge onto the island. They drove towards a magnificent-looking building up ahead, a sandy-coloured mansion surrounded by beautiful gardens. A wrought-iron gate separated a gravel forecourt from the street.

  “Remember, not a word or you know what happens,” Mahmoud warned her. “You’ll be given the order to speak when the time comes.”

  To her amazement, the sentinel at the gate nodded at Mahmoud, opened the gates, and let them through. He drove around to the back of the mansion, turned off the engine, picked up the gun, and prodded her in the side, laughing.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said, “this way.”

  He pulled off the blanket and reached over to open the door. Aimee sidled out of her seat. Her mind seemed to have shut down. She tried to think of who she was and why she was where she was, but everything was a blank. All she could comprehend was that the filthy Mahmoud was beside her, walking her inside, up some marble stairs with thick oak banisters, onto a carpeted landing. All she could feel was the prodding of the gun against her hip. Mahmoud’s foul breath wafted over her.

  “In here,” he ordered.

  She was pushed into a large and beautiful room furnished with a huge oak dining table and three dining chairs at one end. Mahmoud forced her into one of them. Then he produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and cuffed Aimee to the chair. She did not understand. She stared at the handcuffs, stared at Mahmoud. He stood back and studied her with an evil glint in his eyes.

  “I still have the gun, Madame. Any funny business—?”

  “What is going on? Who are you?” she gasped breathlessly.

  Mahmoud perched himself on the oak table, crossed his arms across his chest, and smiled.

  “You really want to play the fool with me, Madame? Who I am is not important. It’s who you are that matters.”

  He broke off. Another door opened and two men dressed in smart administrative uniforms entered. They nodded at Mahmoud, and he left the room. As the two men approached Aimee, she realised that she recognised their hateful faces. Fear shot through her again, stabbing at every nerve in her body. She held her breath. The room seemed to go fuzzy, the light suddenly appearing dull and splintered. For a moment, she thought she had passed out, but she knew she was awake. She was, after all, aware of what was going on. She could see the blurred shapes moving about her and discern muffled sounds. She tried to wriggle her toes and her fingers. “We meet again, Madame, and so soon,” the fatter one said.

  “Let me go. You’ve got the wrong person,” she cried out heatedly. “I have no idea who you want, but I’m not involved in any of this.”

  Blue-grey shadows slid over the walls. She rammed her ankles against the hard wood of the chair legs, panic-stricken. She knew they would kill her. Aimee yanked hard against her handcuffed fists, to no avail. Defeated, she threw her body back against her chair.

  Her mouth trembled, faces appeared before her, first in microscopic detail, then blurring like a brushstroke. Rachid, Maman, Saiza, Rose the housekeeper, Amina, Farouk, Sophie, all of their faces merging and becoming one.

  “We want to question you. This time you will not get away,” the other said. Aimee tried to focus her gaze. The man’s face was expressionless, his lips the colour of pewter, his eyes tight and lifeless, his voice cruel.

  “And this time, you’ll answer every question put to you on your involvement with the terrorist group, the X.”

  The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

  Minya, September 15, 1919

  I try to speak, but I am trembling violently. Alexandre gently puts his hand over my mouth and shakes his head. He has an inky-blue turban wound around his head, blue robes, and sandals—desert garb. He looks thin and ill. He is holding a bundle from which he pulls a chador. He wraps me in it, covering my head and my face. My hands are still wet with blood. My head hurts and my face feels bruised and tight. I stare at my hands numbly and cover them with my chador.

  I look up and see with him four men whom I don’t recognise, dressed in a similar style. They look like Tuareg tribesmen. Alexandre lifts me up and pushes me through the door of al-Shezira’s apartment. He shouts to his men, “Stand guard against those double doors, then follow us.”

  The music has stopped, and all I hear is screaming and whimpering. The slumped bodies of some of the palace’s eunuchs are lying on the marble floor.

  “The palace—?” I start to ask him.

  Alexandre flashes me a look. “Freedom is coming for all,” he says, and scoops me up in his arms. He runs with me along the vast network of palace corridors to the back entrance, which leads to the stables.

  The night eunuchs aren’t where they should be, and I understand what has happened. The price of freedom is the life of others. I have proved that tonight. M
ay my God forgive me.

  Alexandre is breathing hard as he marches forward with me in his arms. My face is so close to his that I can see the perspiration on his forehead, the deep frown etched between his eyebrows. I am heavy, but he is strong. When we reach the stables at the back of the palace, he helps me onto a horse and swings himself on. I cling to him and rest my head against his back. He turns to shout to his men. All around me I hear horses pulling against their reins, their hooves thumping on the earth. I hear Arabic and French being spoken. I close my eyes to block everything out. My body pulses with a strange sensation—relief, fear, I am not sure. I wonder what the future holds for me. But for the moment the future does not matter. I am simply calmed by the movement of the horse as we ride. Alexandre looks back at me every now and again and presses his hand against mine. I see in my mind’s eye the red of al-Shezira’s blood, hear the sound of the revolver exploding against his flesh, watch as his face relaxes in death. Nausea rises from my stomach to my throat.

  I squeeze Alexandre tighter. I want to ask him where we are going, but I cannot speak. We seem to have been travelling for a long time. I wish it were all over. I long to be somewhere, anywhere, not riding on this horse. Eventually we stop. We have been following the Nile, which twinkles in the moonlight. I see a village up ahead.

  When we reach it, Alexandre sets me down, adjusts my chador, and leads me to a small house. His men follow. Inside, a group of people is sitting on the floor. A man is playing an oud softly. A woman is singing one of the ancient songs of the desert. I recognise it. It was sung to me as a child. I listen to it in a trance. I try to picture my family, but their faces are fading away. It is a terrifying feeling. Alexandre nods at the man with the oud but says nothing as he escorts me to a room away from the group. He pushes the door open, sits me down on a low bed, unveils me, and looks into my face.

  “We are safe here for the time being,” he says.

  “Where are we?”

  “A village not far from Beni Suef.”

  “I killed him,” I say, shaking. My lips tremble and my mouth is parched.

  Alexandre reaches for a jug of water, pours me a drink, and lifts it to my lips.

  I drink gratefully.

  “Where do we go to from here?” I say.

  “In an hour, after we have rested and eaten, we will pick up the camel trail to Kerdassa. From there we will plan our journey across the Mediterranean.”

  I am shivering uncontrollably. “Al-Shezira is dead,” I say. Alexandre puts his arms around me and comforts me.

  “He tortured Rachid and sent him away,” I say.

  He grips my shoulders.

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have spies in the palace, servants who are on my side, people who have lived every day waiting for what has happened, to happen.”

  “Is that why there were no night guardsmen on duty?”

  “Yes,” Alexandre says. “I am proud of you, Hezba. You are the people’s hero.”

  “But I have blood on my hands,” I say, pulling my hands out of my robes and staring at the blood that has dried on them.

  “But there were no witnesses to the killing, Hezba. No one saw or would suspect anything.”

  “But the gun?” I say.

  “I have it here. I’m going to bury it deep in the ground. There will be nothing to incriminate you.”

  “I waited for you,” I say tearfully. “I was told to wait for a signal…”

  Alexandre holds me in his arms to calm me.

  “It’s over now, Hezba,” he whispers. “Now we have to look to the future. We have to prepare ourselves for a long and dangerous journey, but first you must rest and change your robes. I must get you to safety in France. Then I will return to Egypt to carry on the fight.”

  He puts the chador back over my hair, stroking and kissing the swollen flesh on my face, and leads me by the hand to another door, then to a little pathway that leads to the Nile.

  “Wash yourself in the river. Take off your clothes and bathe. I will get you more robes and one of our women to bathe your head. Wait here. I won’t be long.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  After the evening prayers, Nemmat made her way to her dead brother’s apartment in Abbassiya to meet Farouk. Once she and Farouk had gone over the minute-by-minute schedule for the assassination plan one last time, Farouk’s men would drive her to the Oxford. Issawi was dining there tonight, and her services as an escort girl for the chief advisor had been arranged. Once Issawi had been drugged, she could bring him back to Abbassiya, where Farouk could get on with his plan. Of course, none of this was going to happen. Nemmat imagined the feeling of power that would come as she ended Farouk’s life. She owed it to her mother, for all the wrongs inflicted on her by men. It felt good to be double-crossing Farouk.

  Though nervous, she was feeling fine. Her moment had come. Such power. A kind of euphoria had taken hold of her. She wanted to be a rich woman. She had said good-bye to her mother, kissed her soft, downy face, squeezed her frail body, and reassured her that she wouldn’t be back too late. She had taken great care with her appearance. She had donned her classiest outfit, a Western-style, ankle-length tightly fitted blue silk sheath that showed off all her curves, covered her arms with her trademark jewelled bracelets, and rimmed her eyes with the usual black kohl. Her hair she’d left loose, brushing it so that it hung down her back, skimming the tops of her thighs.

  She pulled on her blue satin gloves, under which she wore wafer-thin mitts to protect her from exposure to the cyanide. Issawi would think the outfit was a tantalising part of the game of seduction. Farouk would know nothing of her protective mitts.

  She patted the sash that she’d tied around her waist and smiled. The tiny capsule of cyanide lay hidden in the folds of silk.

  Before leaving, she had thrown on her usual black chador, swept any stray tresses behind her back, and covered her head and face with the cloth. Her chador gave her the anonymity she needed. Her heart beat excitedly as she walked out into the street. This job would be much more fun than the Lake Timsah affair. The danger of the operation excited her. Her life excited her. Her mother had wanted her to get married and become a mother herself, but Nemmat could not stop now. How could she ever change when her mother relied on her?

  She stood on the corner and waited for the car to arrive. Farouk had ordered one of his men to drive her to Abbassiya. A car pulled up with two men inside. “Jewel?” one of them asked.

  Nemmat stepped forward.

  “Who asks?”

  “Khufu and Amoun.”

  The code names had been correctly relayed. Nemmat nodded and slid into the rear seat of the car. The traffic was heavy tonight, and the car crawled through the crowded streets. Nemmat glanced nervously at her wristwatch. She was expected at the apartment in ten minutes.

  The minutes ticked by. Finally, Mitwali stopped around the corner from the apartment building, as Nemmat had asked him to. She got out, pulled her chador more tightly over her face, and hung her head as she pushed through the crowds, then climbed the stairs to apartment 12. She knocked on the door. She heard a voice and uttered the code word. The door opened. She nodded in greeting as Farouk locked the door behind her. There on a shabby dresser were a bottle of whisky and a few glasses. Farouk motioned for her to sit down on the dirty old sofa.

  “I’ll stand,” she said coolly.

  “Let’s get down to business,” he said.

  Nemmat did not remove her chador. She stood as confidently as she could and waited for Farouk to speak.

  “The success of this part of the operation comes down to you, Sayyida,” he said as he walked to the dresser, unscrewed the whisky bottle, and poured himself a drink. “Do you want one?”

  Nemmat nodded. “For courage.” She smiled.

  “You have nothing to fear,” he said. “You have the easy part.”

  Farouk handed her a tumbler of whisky.

  “The heroin I’ll
give you will dissolve easily into his drink,” he said, smiling, as Nemmat took a sip of her whisky.

  Farouk took the packet out of his jacket pocket and sniffed it. The heroin he’d bought from Nasser’s Trinkets had been hijacked by the desert bandits, but Mitwali had supplied him with some more top-quality stuff. He handed her the packet. Nemmat watched him nervously. Any minute now, she would have to do it. Realising that she had to distract him, she decided to get him talking.

  “What will happen when it is all over, Sayyid?”

  Farouk gulped down the dregs of his whisky and served himself another.

  “You ask too many questions,” he said. “Just concentrate on the job you have to do. My men will take care of Issawi’s security guards. Once the heroin starts to take effect, he won’t be concerned about leaving his bodyguards behind. He’ll be looking forward to helping himself to you, Sayyida.”

  How cold he seemed. It was as though he wasn’t the least bit interested in her—as though his heart belonged to another or nobody at all. She didn’t understand him. He was an unusual man.

  Her heart slammed against her chest as she considered what she was about to do and tried to anticipate his next move.

  “This death of Issawi means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” Nemmat ventured.

  Farouk had just poured himself another double shot of whisky. He put the bottle down on the dresser and turned to face her.

  “I have been planning this for a long time.”

  She felt her face flush under his gaze. There was something suspicious about his eyes. She felt suddenly very afraid—as though the plan was about to go wrong. “And that’s all you are going to tell me?”

  He jerked his head defiantly at her.

  “Why do you need to know more?”

  “Because if I know what all this is about, I might be able to do my job better.”

  Farouk stepped closer to her. Nemmat couldn’t wrench her eyes from him. He was studying her face, reading every falsity in her heart and soul. He could see through her; she knew it, and something inside her snapped. A wave of panic washed over her. This was a trap, a setup. Perhaps Farouk had summoned her here because he knew she was in league with Littoni and he was going to kill her.